Teaching kids to ask questions

It was the night before the last day of the school year. I was thinking about fun things to do immediately after picking up my youngest after the triumphant finish to fourth grade. “Mom,” he said, “I’ll be sad if I can’t play with my friends one more time before summer.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him. “You’ve got all of recess tomorrow to play with them.” “No, I usually stay in for recess,” he said. “I don’t finish the problems on the math worksheet, so I have to stay inside and do them.”

My brain stopped for a second. This was the first I’d heard of it. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?” I asked him. “I didn’t want you to be mad,” he said. I wasn’t mad at him. I was horrified. Who keeps an active nine-year-old indoors for punishment when the offense is not having finished a worksheet? Who looks at a nine-year-boy and doesn’t think ‘Get this kid on a jungle gym, pronto!’?

I told my husband, “Now I know why he’s so wired after school. He hasn’t been out of the building all day.” In what century was it viewed as an up-to-date child development practice to punish and shame a kid by denying him the day’s only play time? With fast-beating heart and flying fingers, I composed a message to the teacher. “Dear Mrs. X,” I began, “tomorrow is the last day of school. I sincerely hope that you will allow our son to play outside with his friends, whether his math worksheet is finished, or not.”

I told the kid, “If you’re told to stay inside tomorrow, go to the principal’s office and call me. In that case, we’ll go out for lunch, and end the day early.” This is my last child – he has four older siblings. I am not the mom I was when my oldest kids (twins) finished fourth grade a decade ago. The world has changed. I have changed, too.

Could it be that in elementary-ed degree programs, they’re still teaching new teachers that the way to inspire a kid is to bring the hammer down on him? You look at a kid like mine, and you can see his attention flitting all over the room. You don’t see bullying, or violence, or meanness. You see a kid much like his mom and his dad, both of whom doodled in the margins and couldn’t get enough of a window view, especially if a plane were flying by. Can it be that forty years after I finished fourth grade, we still haven’t figured out that you can’t beat a creative/distracted kid into submission? Is there any reason why we’d still be trying to do that, apart from the need to control people smaller than ourselves?

The next day the kid got his recess, and a crisis was averted. I started to talk more specifically with my son about the need that some adults have to control children. I talked to him about trusting his gut and his instincts. I don’t like to tell a kid that adults can be controlling and fearful and wrong. It feels like telling him there’s no Santa Claus, but it also feels like the right thing to do. I want my kids to question everything, especially rules that are laid down with no context and no explanation. I wish someone had taught me to question those things.

I tell job-seekers every day, “If they [employers] don’t get you, they don’t deserve you.” They look at me incredulously. We have to value our own perspectives before we can expect anyone else to value them. I want my son to know that his self-esteem is ten times more important to his dad and me than his grades are. You can talk to the kid for two seconds and see that he’ll make his way in the world without any trouble. The only thing that could slow him down would be his hesitation to find his voice in the face of disapproval from adults whose need for order and control outweigh their desire to grow little flames into big ones. I can feel compassion for fearful people like that, but keep them from damaging my kid’s psyche at the same time.

Fifth grade is off to a much better start, but I’m glad I got the reminder from the universe that a kid’s flame is a terrible thing to dim. As I told his teacher, a few unanswered problems on the math sheet are my absolute last concern. Keeping the kid whole and healthy through 12 years of formal (and how!) education is my top priority. My husband keeps ribbing me: “Think you can keep your sanity through seven more years of the American education system?” he asks. “I dearly hope so,” I say. I never saw myself as the home-schooling type, but then again never is a long time.

My focus at work is re-inventing the workplace to make it work for people, but maybe it’s time to re-invent elementary education, too. Can anyone believe that a lonely kid stuck indoors on a beautiful day is learning any lesson at all, apart from “grownups can be bullies, too.”?

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